Apr 18 MAKING ONE TOUCHDOWN AT A TIME!

Last week I joined Raylan for a business conference he had down South in St. George. Friday was the last day of the conference and I joined him for the keynote speaker, Terry Bradshaw. For those you who may not know him he is a former Pittsburgh Steeler Quarterback, five-time Super Bowl Champ (I think I got that right), a Fox Sunday Football Sportcaster and the Dad from the movie Failure to Launch. I have enjoyed watching him over the years. He always seemed like a funny, easy going guy to be around, but our family fell in love with him in the movie Failure to Launch. So much so that we have told Jax we're turning his room into the nekked room for Dad when he leaves, just like the movie.

When Terry came on stage, he started what was more like a comedy routine for two hours than a motivation speech. I haven't laughed that hard at a couple of comedy concerts we paid a fair amount of money. So if you get a chance to go see him, do it! That said he snuck in an awesome message that I loved; you can do anything you set your mind to, it takes team work to to do it and there's always something good that happens in a day so concentrate on that one thing to reach your goal. All things that are applicable to a blended family.

I set my goal thirteen years ago. I wanted a successful, happy blended family; what that success looks like has changed over the years. One touchdown doesn't win a game and the same goes for a blended family, there's always tomorrow. The victory, the game winning touchdown will come at the end of my life and I'm going to enjoy the up's and down's until that happens.

Second, I couldn't have had any success so far doing it alone. I had my Hubby, my three youngest kids, sometime the older kids and my extended family all coming together to help create the "Hartman Family". I know that it's always going to be a work in progress as life continues to throw us curve balls. We're bonded by choices, emotions and love. A lot like a team, nature didn't bring us together, life did. We will have a lot more touchdowns than fumbles working together!

Third, no matter how bad a day has gone there has always been a positive to build upon to reach my goal. Sometimes I have lost sight of that and brushed it aside when I should have caught it and ran as fast as I could to the goal line. It's so easy to get caught up in all the things that aren't working in my life, but savoring the one thing that is can do a lot to change all the wrong things. Wish I would have trusted the positive more throughout the years. All I can do is move forward, learning from my mistakes. The only thing that really matters is having my family to curl up with around the fire at night. No matter what else happens in a day, you can't beat that!

Today is Halle's birthday, Friday was her husband's they both are major Pittsburgh Steelers fans. So I had to text her the photo and Happy B-Day message which was met with "OMG! That's sooo freakin awesome!........Husband wants to know if Terry Bradshaw wished him a Happy Birthday, I told him YES!" So today I'm wishing the biggest Pittsburg Steelers Fan a Happy Birthday and wishing her success in her own blended family.

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